


The Damage is Done, the Protection is Won

by artsyspikedhair



Series: And Things Change For Better And For Worse [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Morse Code, Muteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 07:22:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5618455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artsyspikedhair/pseuds/artsyspikedhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where the Patron Minette are criminals of a different sort, Eponine is cursed with having been born into the wrong family, and all she wants is the protection of Cosette. Montparnasse agrees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Damage is Done, the Protection is Won

**Author's Note:**

> Montparnasse is Monty around his friends and people who gossip about him. He's 'Parnasse to his dealer, and therefore to Eponine as well. His full name is rarely, if ever, used, except as a narrative device.  
> Also I have no experience with sex of any kind, so I'll likely get stuff wrong.

"Come on, man, please?" Claquesous asked, almost pleading. He knew how to convince Monty to do almost anything.

Monty wasn't willing to go along this time "But-I'm underage! If I get caught the consequences are far worse. Why not send Babet? He's good with people!" 

"We all know you are the one capable of getting the prices lowered. And I have to get the other stuff anyway." Babet added. 

"Fine. But you'll owe me. Big time. You know the only reason we get this so cheap is because the old guy tries to get into my pants, right?" 

"Yeah, we know. In fact, he said that if you get him off, he might get us the stuff for free." Claquesous said, obviously hoping Monty would do it. 

Gueulemer made a gesture crudely meant to be him sucking on a penis. Monty stuck up his middle finger.

"Fine. But I get to play on your D.S.3 for at least a month." Monty bargained, sticking his hand out. 

Claquesous shook it. "Deal." 

It was a few days before school would start. Montparnasse was climbing over fence to the parking lot of what was clearly a grimy hotel. This was where Thenardier told him to meet. This was where he was going to do the thing he told himself he would never do again, the thing his father would often have him do when he was too drunk to go somewhere and attack innocent an sixteen-year-old with a fake ID at a bar. It didn't matter Montparnasse was eleven. His father was stronger and larger, and he was a good-for-nothing pansy- 

His father was in jail now, but Montparnasse was damned if he was going to end up in jail with him. So he had ground rules.

_Don't get caught. Don't screw up. Do whatever possible to get in and out of the parking lot with as little time as possible for Thenardier to change his mind and rat you out. _ ____

Thernardier showed up, sneaking out the back door of the establishment. 

"Had to put my daughter on luggage duty." he explained. 

'Parnasse knew Eponine, and understood why he had had to wait. The girl hated the seedy people who frequently came to her father's hotel to hide from the cops, or have gross sex or break stuff. Occasionally someone shot themselves in the head, because nobody checks luggage for guns. "Yeah, I get it. You have the stuff?" he asked, his voice deep. 'Parnasse had to seem older than sixteen, or else Thenardier wouldn't let him do what he had to do. He'd be stuck paying real money, and that would mean stealing from his friends, and that would mean bad things would happen. 

"Yeah. You willing to do what was asked of you? The weed's free if you do." 

"Yeah," 'Parnasse said, his hand in his pockets. Thenardier was already pulling down his own pants. Then his boxers. Then- 

  
  
'Parnasse left the parking lot with a plastic bag of green. His friends would be proud. His mouth tasted odd, the way he remembered it tasting all those years past-

It didn't matter. Claquesous would be happy, and that meant Monty was protected. He got clothes from Babet, and food from crashing at Claquesous' house all summer, and now he had repaid them. 

School started a few day after that. Monty had history with Gueulemer. The two of them tapped in Morse code on their desks. Gueulemer did it because it was his only way of communicating other than signing and he didn't want to get caught by the teacher. Monty replied because he could not give less of a shit about history, especially not when they were simply going over the same syllabus he had learned the previous two years. 

Montparnasse was not a good student. He was a sophomore in only freshman classes, because he spent more days on the streets with his buddies than in classes. The one class he hadn't failed was sign language, and that was for Gueulemer's sake. He didn't want to curse the poor guy into lip reading all the time, so he learned sign language. 

Math was the one subject he was good at, when he wasn't skipping it. So he still ended up in Honors. The only problem was this asshole kid started asking him if he wanted to join the feminist club. Hell no, Montparnasse responded. The two got into a debate about abortion. Monty's mother was always cursing the fact abortion wasn't allowed where she'd gotten pregnant. "If it had been, I wouldn't have been stuck with you!" she'd snarl at him. Of course Monty thought of it as murder. 

The only exciting part of his day was lunch, where he ran into someone he though he'd never find. 

Eponine was sixteen, like him, but she had been put into school at age seven, when her family got caught the first time. So Montparnasse was not expecting her to be in the courtyard, where he had gone to be alone because none of his friends had the same lunch block as him. 

"What're you doin' here?" he asked her, trying not to see the resemblance she had to her father. Trying not remember what he had done. 

"I'm too smart for the middle school's science class, so they sent me to this dump. You're 'Parnasse, right? I know you're one of my father's clients." 

"I'm no client!" 'Parnasse responded. "He's my dealer. I paid him in sex, I didn't pay him for sex. There's a difference." 

"Well, you did something illegal either way." The girl replied, with an accusatory undertone. 

"Look, what do you want?" 'Parnasse snapped at her. 

"There's this girl my dad used to mess around with. She's a freshman. Her name's Cosette. She was real young, like six or seven, so she's likely blocked it out. Just make sure she never finds out I exist." 

"How the fuck should I do that? I don't know her!" 

"Just, if you see a brown girl with large braids who seems awkward and small, and I'm with you, warn me so I can disappear before she sees me. Okay?" 

"So you expect me to be friends with you in order to protect some girl I don't know from your father?! This is fucked up!" 

"hey, you want protection from your father, don't you?" 

'Parnasse was shocked. How the fuck did she know about his dad? Then he remembered her dad was in prison for a while. "Fine. You can hang around to hide from your precious Cosette. Just let me act annoyed if my friends are around. They're seniors, except Gueulemer, only Gueulemer is mute and can kill a man, Babet is like nineteen, and Claquesous is a criminal mastermind. If they find out I'm willingly letting a middle school kid hang around, they'll kill me." 

"Fine. So we've got each other's backs now." 

"Yeah, guess we do." 

The bell rang, and Eponine walked to her Honors Physics class, while Montparnasse schlepped over to the academic support center. 


End file.
